Smith v. Clark and Clark v. Smith: eighteenth-century Scottish doctors in dispute.

Understanding of the mechanisms of the body and effective medical intervention had made little progress since antiquity, but in the mid-eighteenth century doctors enjoyed much confidence amongst the populace and could earn a good living.' At the same time, individuals of all classes took enormous interest in matters of health and felt themselves able to participate in their own diagnoses and cures. By tracing the voluminous correspondence on medical matters in the Gentleman's Magazine, Roy Porter has shown not only that individuals were familiar with such matters but that this familiarity was "integral to the public role of the well-informed, publicspirited and responsible layman".2 But what if doctors disagreed? How was the layman to know whom to trust? Certain personalities would have inspired more confidence; "successes" would have been spread by word of mouth; alternative opinions would have been sought. Disagreements and rivalries between doctors cannot have been that rare, but uncovering evidence of them is not easy.3 Roy Porter has documented a dispute between a "quack" and a "scion of medical orthodoxy".4 This paper looks at a much lower